


Silent Whispers, Silent Tears

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [14]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Character Background, Childhood Memories, Dream World, Father/Daughter Relationship, Gen, Limbo Between Life and Death, Personal Torment, References to Comic Book Origins, mafia wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"You don't know about real loss, because it only occurs when you've loved someone more than you love yourself."</em> ~ Robin Williams, "Good Will Hunting"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent Whispers, Silent Tears

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure what to say about this piece, mostly because I don't know if it works. I've gone over it a couple different times, and I think it's as good as it will get. Comments are welcome - just be gentle with criticism. :)
> 
> And yes, the title for this piece was definitely borrowed from Within Temptations' "Memories".

It’s Spring.

Wherever this place is, he knows it can’t be Gotham. Spring abandoned Gotham years ago, transforming into a cold, dreary, lingering resonance of Winter. Here, the sun pours warmth downward, a soft and pleasant caress over the skin, highlighting lush blade of green grass in shades of gold. The cherry trees are in full bloom, white and pink petals cast against a clear blue sky, their fragrance filling the air. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky. It’s so…so very blue.

He recognizes this room, but not as his own. He remembers it from younger years, when a little boy would be disturbed by strange dreams or the violent crack of thunder during a rainstorm, and small feet would pad quietly across cool tiled floor, pass through the plush comfort of a burgundy rug, and then equally small hands would reach imploringly for the two figures resting in a magnificent bed; the boy would look at it, eyes wide and admiring even in the midst of distress or fear, and think it nearly an island of rich colors, soft textures, and warm arms to pull him close and keep him safe through the night.

The boy is a man now, and he sees things differently. The bed is not quite an island, despite its impressive size, but the textures beneath his wandering touch are the same, and the vibrant colors are just as he remembers them. With the sight, and sensation, comes a warm wave of nostalgia: the kind of reassuring comfort brought upon a soul when it returns home after so long a time away.

Except his parents’ home—his childhood home—is gone. Gone, sold on the market with the same dispassionate manner as cattle are sold at auction. Sold without any concept of the memories attached to the sitting room and the grand piano Mother played every evening, or the library where a young boy spent many an hour delving into literature of all genres, or the kitchen where that boy and his mother would bake enough sweets to feed an army. Gone. Gone. Gone. 

Gone, just like them.

…And yet, here he is.

The bed shows signs of only one body coming to rest within its covers. Only one, no one else. That doesn’t seem right, for reasons he can’t immediately place.

Down the hall, he hears the gentle sound of humming. He follows, like a siren call, retracing paths he remembers only too well from years ago: along the burgundy-lined floor, with rich ivory walls to his left and elegantly-crafted rosewood railings to his right, past five closed doors and finally arriving at the sixth; this one is open, and it leads into a paradise of gold-lined shelves, leather-bound volumes adorning every available space, and a little oasis of three armchairs circling an ornate hearth. No fire crackles in its depths, not at this time of year, and the chairs are empty.

Once, there were three seated in their designated chair. Sometimes, the boy was known to stretch out across the carpet, flat on his belly, and listen while his father read from Stevenson, or Sir Doyle, or even Poe and Dickinson. The father and mother are dead and gone, and the boy is no more. He knows this. He’s known it for a long time. They’re dead. They’ll never come back.

It doesn’t dull the sting of disappointment, when he walks across the threshold and sees nothing.

The humming hasn’t stopped. It resonates like a church bell throughout the wide open space that is the library, and he rather thinks it to be just as musical, but he realizes it isn’t coming from the library itself. It’s coming through the open window, the one allowing a pleasant spring breeze and plenty of sunlight to fill the room. It leads out to a small balcony, more comparable to a loft patio than something from fairytale lore, but clearly there is enough space for someone to perch out there and take in the pleasant weather.

She’s a delicate little creature: pale skin kissed gold by the sunlight, features fragile as glass, with a head full of tumbling curls that frame her down to the waist. Blue skirts rustle around her legs, dancing in the wind, while she dangles said limbs over the balcony rail and hum without care or concern. The odds of her losing balance and falling from the edge are not necessarily given, but certainly present.

He thinks of how easy it would be to push her, to be the reason she falls to near-certain death. Then she turns, aware of his presence though he’s certain he made no noise coming forward, and he stumbles into a pair of blue eyes set to match the ocean depths: clear, vibrant in color, and dragging a man’s soul into a beautiful death.

“ _You’re here._ ” She whispers; delight dawns over her expression and she swivels in place, kicking bare legs to the safer ledge and darting forward. She waits for no permission and seeks no pardon, just rushes to close distance between them and tosses her lithe arms around him.

There is no explanation—scientific, religious, psychological, or otherwise—for what happens when she embraces him. Every nerve in his body alights, not with tension or agitation, but with unbridled relief. He feels…happy. The kind of happiness lost to him since tragedy stole his family and brought his world crashing down to shattered fragments. The kind of happiness lost and replaced by the satisfaction of sapping a man’s will to live and cleaving a woman’s every last scrap of beauty from the bone.

But no…no, this is beyond even…this can’t even qualify as happiness. It is a paltry idea of satisfaction. This…this is…this is ecstasy. This is nirvana. Wholesome, perfect, all-consuming…

…and absolutely terrifying.

***

She is a sliver of sunlight, of moonlight; a star fallen from velvet black skies. She flies across a lush green world, golden hair flying as a triumphant banner, arms outstretched not to embrace the world, but to conquer it. She is young, but she is a goddess waiting patiently for a world that will soon humble itself before her grace, before her mind, before her prowess.

And then she turns, curls gliding across her face like the delicate flutter of butterflies wings, and those blue eyes find him. Hers are eyes much too innocent, naïve at first glance and too curious for her own sake, and she’s only a child once more.

His child.

“ _Daddy,_ ” she calls, and nothing could ever explain just what it does to him, when he hears that name trilling off her tongue, breaking in the air between them like some rapturous burst of melody that both enthralls and petrifies, “ _dance with me._ ”

And he does, because her eyes are his eyes, her blood is his blood, and her smile was once his smile. He knows, as he takes her in his arms—not for the first time, never the last—he’ll refuse her nothing. He’ll deny her nothing. He’ll stand aside and watch as the world bows at her feet and she stands triumphant over her kingdom, Queen Victorious.

For now, she spins and sways in his arms, eyes bright and smile laughing, and all is right in the world.

*** 

It’s only through a chance look, while he dresses for the day, that he notices something odd about his skin. It prompts a second, and closer, glance, and even then he stares for a good five minutes before, after running fingers over his opposing forearm, he appreciates how smooth it all is. Unblemished. Untainted. There are no marks, no damages, nothing to interrupt a flawless expanse of white.

He stares for a moment longer. Thinks there is something strange about the whole sight, though he’s seen it many a time before in the days since coming here. He runs the pad of his thumb across the inner elbow, and thinks there is something missing. The skin is too smooth. Too perfect. He thinks there should be a mark here. A scar.

He blinks and finishes buttoning his shirt. If there really were something so wrong, so terribly amiss, he’d remember what it is.

***

They spend most days in the sitting room. The grand piano is there, ivory keys fresh and waiting to be used, that the room might be filled with music. She plays with the skill of classical composers long since dead and buried, slender fingers moving effortlessly across ivory and black. She demonstrates a passion and preference for Beethoven, though she is equally familiar with Mozart and Bach. Sometimes, when she thinks he is far too immersed in a book to notice, her voice lifts in a delicate little trill, and it dances on the air in time with the notes playing from her fingertips.

There is something familiar about it, the way her voice weaves together with the music in perfect harmony. It’s as though he has heard it before, but cannot remember where, or how, or when…

As with many things these days, he lets curiosity fall to the wayside. If he can’t remember, it’s clearly not important.

***

She has the most endearing streak of persistent stubbornness.

“ _You promised._ ” She reminds him, while settling atop her bedcovers, arms full of leather-bound literature, and gives him a sharp gaze that silently dares him to refuse her. In these moments—and there are many, not exclusive to bedtime—he sees the goddess she’ll yet become. Goddess, siren, a nymph who shall command the minds and souls of men, women, children alike.

“ _You’ve heard this a thousand times._ ” He chides softly, and while it is a mild exaggeration, it is very mild. She has only heard it half-a-thousand times.

“ _And each time is better than the first._ ” She answers. Her legs fold crisply beneath her, her hands clap down atop her book—beneath her fingers, he can see the gold-embossed letters of _Edgar Allen Poe’s Collected Works_ —and her head lifts high. She’ll not be denied, and it’s moments like this that his heart swells with such adoration for this perfect creature.

He laughs, kisses her brow, and opens the book yet again. He’ll open it many times after this night.

***

Her wardrobe works a consistent theme.

She possesses an elegant array of dresses, of varying styles, but all are of the darker colors: teal, maroon, crimson, royal blue, eggplant, emerald…he wonders, perhaps, if the whole purpose is to offset her pale features with sharp contrasts, or if there is a deeper purpose at work here—subconscious or not—to let her wardrobe reflect her true colors. Her true nature.

It beckons familiarity to him, for reasons he, once again, cannot quite place. He wears dark grey trousers but favors the lightweight pleasure of white cotton shirts. The sleeves are almost always rolled up to his elbows, the collar opened two or three buttons to expose a modest slit of skin. He has nothing to hide from her, from the world, or from himself. No secrets. No marks or scars that might make him seem inhuman. Dangerous. Monstrous.

No. He’s just a man. Not only a man, but a father.

Today, her chosen attire is emerald green to highlight the blue of her eyes: lace-trimmed skirts, capped sleeves, and no shoes. She has either a great disdain for shoes or just chooses to go about life feeling earth under her toes and absorbing the purely organic feel of dirt and life against the most sensitive nerves in her body.

From the large oak tree in front, a countryside swing, fashioned from two yarns of rope and a simple wooden plank, hangs a respectable distance. She likes to spend time here, usually alone while he’s reading in the sitting room and keeping one eye out the window. Today, he joins her, and instead of idly rocking to and fro of her own propelling power, she flies high beneath a canopy of branches, arms stretched far in hope of caressing the skies and snatching up a cloud in her fingertips.

One day, he knows, she’ll finally fly. She’ll fly, and each one of those clouds will be hers to grasp and release at will. The sky will not be out of her reach; it will be her palace, from which she looks down at the ground below and surveys her subjects accordingly.

“ _Catch me, Daddy!_ ” she suddenly cries out, and he has barely a moment’s notice before she leaves the safety of rope of wood, thrusts her body forward, and there is nothing holding her back, or down, or in place.

She’s flying.

Her hair ripples in the wind like wings, translucent and shimmering in sunlight. Her arms are outstretched, taking the world under her command and sweeping herself to a higher place. To her castle in the sky, to her throne amongst the clouds. To a place above the world she’ll conquer, one day very soon. So very soon…

His arms are waiting when she falls, half a minute later, and he doesn’t let her go. He clutches her close, presses her to his chest, and listens as the beat of two hearts mold into one.

She clings to him just as tightly, and her voice trembles softly when she begs him to never let her go. It seems such a silly, strange request. Of course he’ll never let her go. How could he? _Why_ would he?

“ _Never._ ” He vows, and she breathes relief.

***

She has Poe’s _Black Cat_ memorized, yet he finds her curled in an armchair, beside an unlit fireplace, with the leather-bound book spread across her lap. He knows she’s reading the same story, yet again, because her lips are moving in time with the words. He’s an amateur lip-reader, but he recognizes a few words here and there. More importantly, he recognizes the piercing focus in her gaze, drinking in the words she’s read hundreds of times.

He asks her why. There are many stories within the collection, many authors to be explored and dissected, yet she remains fixated on Poe. The master of suspense and horror, creator of morbid visuals and grotesque imagery. What about him fascinates her?

“ _You see grotesque and horror, Daddy._ ” She answers, blue eyes flickering up to meet his questioning gaze. “ _I see something else._ ”

He doesn’t ask what it is she sees. There is a strange, inexplicable feeling deep in his gut that tells him now isn’t the time to press for answers. Answers will come later.

***

They celebrate her birthday on a beautiful summer day. It’s a quiet affair, but he finds it perfectly nostalgic. Birthdays were always a private matter with his parents. Other celebrations—Christmas, New Year’s, etc.—were large get-togethers hosted in the manor. Birthdays, however, were different. Birthdays were just him, Mother, and Father: the perfect trio. Mother baked his favorite cake, Father would cook on the grill, and they would sit together outside, on a day just like this. They would give him a present, or two or three—he wanted for nothing as a boy—and eat and talk and laugh.

He can’t give her the same. They live on their own island, in a place without intruders, without strangers to barge in and interfere with their lives, but isolation also means limitations. They want for nothing, food and drink and shelter and luxury, but when it comes to gifts…he has nothing. He can give her nothing.

She offers no complaints throughout the day. She smiles and delights in their shared company and asks for little more. Her blue eyes sparkle and dance in sunlight; the royal blue of her dress fits perfectly with the scene. She looks royal. Radiant. She deserves so much more.

“ _I’m happy, Daddy._ ” She promises, all sweet smiles with honesty at their center. “ _I’m with you._ ”

This time, the promise doesn’t give him as much reassurance as he expects. Something is missing.

***

He sleeps late one morning. Well, doesn’t sleep as much as lie awake in bed, staring out the window as the dawn bleeds into a dark sky and sunlight blossoms across the horizon. An hour or so later, he finally rises, dresses for the day, and ventures downstairs.

There is an oppressive weight in his chest. It’s unfamiliar, uncomfortable. And he doesn’t understand it.

She’s in the study, on the piano. She plays a new song today, wordlessly following the melody with her voice. The notes drift on the air, settle deep in his ear, and an icy sensation pools thick in his core and solidifies like lead. He stops, mid-step, and stares. Suddenly, he sees her differently: not as a stranger, but as missing another half. She suddenly looks incomplete, sharp edges and two-dimensional. The room is sapped of color and warmth, walls white and the space around them hollow. And all the while, she plays, ignorant of his presence, of the world around her…of everything, except that song.

“ _Where did you learn that?_ ” he whispers. His voice doesn’t sound right.

She takes a moment to respond, and when she does, there is a distinct sadness to her voice. “ _Mommy taught me._ "

_Mommy._ Little arms winding around slender shoulders, disappearing beneath a thick veil of ink-black velvet, _I love you, Mommy!_

Blue eyes, sparkling like diamonds and sapphires, with only pure adoration in their gaze; lips descending upon gentle features, bestowing kiss after kiss after kiss. _I love you, dearest one. My precious. My sweet girl._

The room tilts, and he requires the doorway for support. “ _Where is she?_ ” he breathes, lungs constricting tight around each breath. “ _Where…where is your mother?_ ”

Now, the sadness appears like an oppressive aura, clouding the room, surrounding her in a shroud of grey, and her fingers still atop the keys. In profile, he can’t be sure, but he suspects the glimmer of tears passing across her eyes. “ _Mommy can’t be here with us._ "

***

The next few days are dark. The skies grow thick with clouds, grey and heavy and blotting out all hint of sunlight. Then, it starts raining. It rains hard and fast, a shimmering veil shrouding everything from view beyond the front porch.

The third day of rain finds him searching the whole house for her, calling without answer. A sideways glance out the kitchen window reveals a shape, blurred and dark, through the blinding downpour. He looks a little closer. He recognizes the large oak tree, the canopy weighed heavy under too much rain, and finally recognizes her.

He’s soaked in half a minute, but continues forward until he sees her more clearly. Likewise, her skin, clothes, and hair are drenched. She shivers a little, when a chilled wind cuts through and torments her sensitized nerves. He suddenly wishes for a jacket, or a coat, to wrap around her. Then he realizes it’s foolish: any item of clothing on his body would be just as ruined by the rain and provide no protection.

She slowly lifts her head, golden curls a limp and heavy pall around her. Blue eyes are dark, shadowed, and glimmering with tears. She looks old. She looks tired. A tormented spirit in place of a lively and passionate soul. Hollow. Empty. “ _You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?_ ”

_I have to._ The words don’t meet air, but his gaze must communicate as much, because the tears fall with her next blink, her features crumple, and her head falls forward in grief. “ _No…_ ” she whimpers, barely audible above the storm. “ _No, Daddy, no…_ ”

He catches her face between both palms. Her skin feels cold. Much too cold. Like a living corpse.

_“Like kissing a corpse...” he whispers; her skin is ice beneath his touch, her lips soft but bitterly cold and tinged with blood’s lingering taste, “Sweet girl, you’re so cold....”_

“ _I will find you._ ” He whispers. He doesn’t know when. He doesn’t know how. But he will. “ _I will find you again, and when I do, nothing will ever come between us again. No one will **ever** take you from me._ ”

That much, at least, he knows is true.

***

The study is much quieter today, which is odd considering how many are gathered within the same space: a large poker game transpires in the far left corner of the room, Peter is curled up in Madelaine’s lap with _Gulliver’s Travels_ , in an armchair near the fire. The remaining brothers are engaged in quiet conversation on the opposite side, with faces much too serious and far too grave for their youth—youth ought to be a time of happier things, and Alexander thinks this is quite entirely his fault. They were meant to be born in a better time, a better place…but then they wouldn’t be born to him.

He’s selfish, but at least it’s a fault by which he comes honestly and accepts without regret.

Absent from the room are, quite against Alexander’s expressed wishes, Little Cat and She-Wolf. He warned the latter it was not the time, that things were still too tense, the air too poisonous, the bloodlust not yet dissipated from the enemy’s blackened soul, and—most certainly—the threat not eliminated.

She is adamant. And she is stubborn. When he and Audrey meet again, he’ll have a few words with the man about which traits he passed along to this child.

They left about an hour ago: Little Cat to “a safe place,” and She-Wolf elsewhere. He’s been checking the clock ever since. She-Wolf wasn’t specific about her return time, and even less so about her intended destination. It was a mistake. He should have sent one of his men with her. Nikolai, perhaps: he’s the strongest, the one few people wish to provoke. He’s beaten a man half to death with his bare fists before. Or maybe Vladimir, for being so quick with a gun. Or even—

The study doors fly open with a violent flourish. Three men abandon their poker cards and pull their guns at the intruder. Vladimir follows in good time with the others, quick on his feet, but he never pulls his gun. Instead, his dark eyes widen, and he takes an unsteady backwards steps. Peter, previously holding the book between both hands, lets the volume drop with a resounding _thud_ to the carpet, and clings to his mother’s breast. Alexander, slow and tentative, rises from his seat. He breathes uneasily and offers a silent prayer to the God who, truly, brings the dead back to life.

The tiger stands in the doorway. His composed and refined demeanor has apparently been left on the streets, rotting beside his spilt blood. Black trousers and matching shoes are fitted well enough in place, but his shirt hangs open, rumpled, barely buttoned to mid-waist, and beneath dark fabric a litany of tallied scars and the ugly black reminders of five bullets are exposed for all to see.

His blue eyes are rimmed red, his face pale, skin taut over the bones. There is murder in the tight line of his jaw and bloodlust in his gaze. There appears to be something—multiple somethings, actually—strapped to his waist and upper thighs. Alexander thinks, in a flash of light over his outer left thigh, there’s a glimmer of reflection off a knife’s blade. He looks again. This time, he sees three blades, all gleaming in the light as if proudly waving their banner, declaring war of their own making.

Zsasz exhales slowly, tightly, and then takes a step forward. The fingers of one hand play dangerously over the knife at his right hip, and Alexander wonders if he might be so feral that he’ll turn on the family.

“ _Where_ is he?"


End file.
